The huffing castigation of the Canadian women’s hockey team for last night’s sudsy celebration of its Vancouver gold medal shows the International Olympic Committee at its paternalistic, sexist worst, says Rachel Bachman, whose initial reaction to the on-ice Molsons was to turn to a colleague and say, “I love this sport.” Hard to imagine the IOC chastising a men’s team—even the hotel-room-trashing Americans, say—for celebrating the same way. It certainly didn't knock Canadian Jon Montgomery for drinking beer on live TV after his skeleton gold.
The Canadians “were enjoying their final prize after a lifetime of work for it, in the home country that claims the very sport of hockey as its own,” Bachman blogs for the Oregonian. “Clinched before an expectant nation, their victory had to be an enormous relief.” And while hero Marie-Philip Poulin might have been, at 18, too young to be photographed with beer in hand (except in her home province, Quebec), Bachman, to her own daughter, “would happily retort: ‘If you score the only two goals for the gold medal-winning team at the Olympics, I’ll open the beer for you.’”
(More Marie-Philip Poulin stories.)
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